Walking through a forest at dusk, you’ve likely heard the croaks and groans of frogs and toads forming a chorus in the damp undergrowth. But what if the forest were suddenly, inexplicably, silent? In the 1980s scientists started noticing the forests becoming quieter as amphibian populations around the globe began to decline — rapidly. Today we are joined by Dr. Taegan McMahon from the University of Tampa to discuss our first ever wildlife disease: chytridiomycosis. Chytrid fungus, or Bd for short, has wreaked havoc on amphibian populations for the last several decades, and researchers are still trying to find a way to stop it.
For more information on Chytrid and Taegan’s research, follow her lab on instagram @mcmahon_lab. For more awesome parasitology pics, check out @uoftampa_parasitology, and for gorgeous biology art, Taegan does watercolors @wandering.ecologist!
| History | Biology |
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| Kolbert, Elizabeth. The sixth extinction: An unnatural history. A&C Black, 2014. | Berger, Lee, Rick Speare, and Alex Hyatt. “Chytrid fungi and amphibian declines: overview, implications and future directions.” Declines and disappearances of australian frogs. Environment Australia, Canberra 1999 (1999): 23-33. |
| Crutzen, P. J. “Geology of mankind.” Nature 415 (2002). | Voyles, Jamie, et al. “Pathogenesis of chytridiomycosis, a cause of catastrophic amphibian declines.” Science 326.5952 (2009): 582-585. |
| Skerratt, Lee Francis, et al. “Spread of chytridiomycosis has caused the rapid global decline and extinction of frogs.” EcoHealth 4.2 (2007): 125. | Grogan, Laura F., et al. “Chytridiomycosis causes catastrophic organism-wide metabolic dysregulation including profound failure of cellular energy pathways.” Scientific reports 8.1 (2018): 8188 |
| Wake, David B., and Vance T. Vredenburg. “Are we in the midst of the sixth mass extinction? A view from the world of amphibians.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105.Supplement 1 (2008): 11466-11473. | Scheele, Ben C., et al. “Amphibian fungal panzootic causes catastrophic and ongoing loss of biodiversity.” Science363.6434 (2019): 1459-1463. |
| O’hanlon, Simon J., et al. “Recent Asian origin of chytrid fungi causing global amphibian declines.” Science 360.6389 (2018): 621-627. |
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